Poll

Government needs to be clearer about Shale Wealth Fund

Date: 12/8/2016

Planning magazine reports that plans to make direct payments to households in areas affected by fracking have been mooted by Prime Minister Theresa May, but it is unclear what residents' reacations will be.

Michael Wilks, planning projects manager at Suffolk County Council and the Planning Officers Society's NSIPs specialist, said that the government needed to be clearer about the extent to which the Shale Wealth Fund could be taken into account when planning decisions are being made.

But he did not accept that infrastructure funding for large schemes would be significantly affected by directing cash to residents. "It might readjust the balance of funding sources, so that bodies acting at a more strategic level - local enterprise partnerships and combined authorities, for example - have greater funding at their disposal where shale gas is present," he said.